BORN DURHAM, 25/11/1872. SON OF JOHN AND MARY LOUISA PAYNE, 19 MILTON ROAD, HARTLEPOOL. MARRIED 1902. HIS WIFE FRANCES ELIZABETH PAYNE LIVED AT THIS CWGC ADDRESS. HE WAS SHIP’S MASTER OF THE ‘MANCHESTER COMMERCE’ SUNK BY A MINE, ON 26/10/1914. HE WAS AGED 41. HE LEFT £619 IN HIS WILL TO HIS WIDOW AT THIS PROBATE ADDRESS. HIS NAME IS LISTED ON HULL MERCHANT NAVY ROH. COMMEMORATED ON THE TOWER HILL NAVAL MEMORIAL, LONDON.
HE DROWNED WITH STANLEY JOHNSON, FROM 34 WYNDHAM STREET HULL. BOTH MEN ARE PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE HULL AND LINCOLNSHIRE TIMES, ON 31/101/1914. *
Manchester Commerce SS was a 5,363 grt British Merchantship. On the 27th October 1914 when 20 miles N ¼ E from Tory Island, Co Donegal, Ireland she was mined and sunk. 14 lives lost including Master. Manchester Commerce ran into a minefield laid by the North German Lloyd liner Berlin 20 miles N. of Tory Island. She was bound from Manchester to Quebec and sank on October 26th, 1914, with the loss of 14 of her crew, including the captain. Unfortunately owing to the nearby coastguard station not possessing telegraphic communication, it was not possible to circulate the news of the steamship´s loss at once. As a result of this the loss of the ship was not known to the Admiralty until after a battle squadron had steamed into the minefield, and on the next day the battleship Audacious was lost in the same area through striking a mine. Read more at wrecksite: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?11012
